


Apples

by Magi_Silverwolf



Series: Pings of the Heart [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Warehouse 13
Genre: Alterate Universe - Timeline Changes, Disturbing Imagery & Thoughts, Extreme Child Abuse, Gen, Harry Potter (Timeline Shift), Non-graphic description of torture, Questionable Legality of Child Custody Changes, evil dursleys, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-04
Updated: 2017-03-04
Packaged: 2018-09-28 07:28:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10079486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magi_Silverwolf/pseuds/Magi_Silverwolf
Summary: Lily knew things that others didn't. She paid attention where others didn't. Is it any surprise that she knew about artifacts and knew how to use them? Too bad it was Harry who ended up paying the price of its use. This is how Harry Potter came to belong to the Warehouse. It was like a puzzle piece finally sliding home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I do not own the original canon nor am I making any profit from writing this piece. All works are accredited to their original authors, performers, and producers while this piece is mine. No copyright infringement is intended. I acknowledge that all views and opinions expressed herein are merely my interpretations of the characters and situations found within the original canon and may not reflect the views and opinions of the original author(s), producer(s), and/or other people.  
> Warnings: This story may contain material that is not suitable for all audiences and may offend some readers. This particular piece includes non-graphic details of severe child abuse. A few of the things which are heavily implied could even be classified as torture, even if used against an adult. There is also the contemplation of suicide, including the development of a plan and the gathering of supplies. The suicidal person is chronologically a child, which is often even more disturbing to people despite how not uncommon such a situation is.  
> Crossover Information: This story crosses over aspects from the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling and the television series Warehouse 13. There may be minor mentions of related canons of either series and possible other similar canons. So far there are no plot points drawn from anything except the Harry Potter books and the episodes of Warehouse 13.  
> Timeline Clarification: the Harry Potter timeline has been moved so that Harry was born in 2000. The Marauder Era moves to match that change while the First Blood War expands to fill the intervening time with Tom M. Riddle being born in the same year that he had been. Most of the alterations to interactions and personalities among the wizarding characters can be traced back to one of those changes to the timeline. Very little of that is relevant to Apples, but will become more so in future pieces.  
> Author’s Note: The first portion of the first section is going to be the major stumbling block to the emotions. If it helps any, the description (such as it is) of the abuse is limited to one paragraph, the second one that starts with “the necklace”. It may help even more to know going in that this particular mission turns out to not be a “snag & bag” so much as a “snag”. In fact, the Warehouse staff may not realize that the necklace is significant at all (Artie definitely doesn’t) by the end of this.

**Song Recommendation(s):** “Shake It Out (Acoustic Version)” by Florence + the Machine; “Eleanor Rigby” by The Beatles; “Sanctuary” by Paradise Fears

-= LP =-

Pings of the Heart

Part 01: Apples

-= LP =-

“No temptation can gravitate to a man unless there is that in his heart which is capable of responding to it.” – James Allen

-= LP =-

 

As long as Harry had been aware, the dreams had been with him. Through everything that the Dursleys had done, the dreams were a comfort. He never remembered much of them—which was odd since he had a very good memory otherwise. What he could remember was mostly feelings and colors. He remembered hair the same shade of red as the sunset right before it faded into the purple of twilight and as soft as silk in his tiny hand. He could remember eyes the same dark green as his own but full of stars. He could remember the warm feel of arms around him and the smell of Lily of the Valley. He could remember the cool touch of metal against his skin before a flare of fire ran through it.

 

He was certain that last memory was when he received the necklace. The Dursleys hated the necklace. He could remember every attempt they had made to remove it over the years. Despite the box clasp, the necklace could not be removed, but the Dursleys were persistent, Aunt Petunia especially. The necklace was on a delicate silver chain which remained (even as Harry grew) just long enough for the tiny pendant to sit at the hollow of his throat. The pendant was equally simple—just a silver disk with a triskel in relief on it. At the point where the three legs met sat a tiny clear stone. He didn’t think it was a diamond, as Uncle Vernon had said early on when he attempted to just pry the stone free rather than remove the necklace altogether. He also didn’t think it was simply glass as Aunt Petunia told everyone who dared ask about it.

 

The necklace protected him. He didn’t know how exactly and since his family considered asking questions forbidden and punishable, he had a lack of answers from others. Since he couldn’t ask questions, Harry had become very adept at getting information in other ways, such as observation of patterns. Unfortunately, the protections of the necklace had been tested enough for him to be able to draw a lot of conclusions about its abilities.

 

The necklace dampened any impact which would have otherwise done serious damage, but it didn’t stop any pain which would have been caused. Fire and hot temperatures would likewise not burn him (and just gave him an intense _need_ to be moving), but the sun still could. Acid and similar chemicals likewise didn’t actually harm him, but they left his exposed skin hypersensitive so that even the air felt rough. Things could cut him but they had to be made of only one substance. Thankfully, he found that out away from the Dursleys because they didn’t need to know that all they had to do was make a stake and Uncle Vernon’s stabbing attempts would be more successful. Poisons would come out of his eyes in hideous lime green tears that burned worse than his arm being held against the cooker. Finding _that_ out had made him leery about accepting any “special treats” from Aunt Petunia. He also knew that he couldn’t drown but coughing up whatever substance had filled his lungs hurt far more than crying the poison-tears did. Harry _was_ thankful that the Dursleys were not especially creative in their attempts to remove their problem, either by getting the necklace off or by successfully killing Harry, and even less prone to repeated experiments in the area.

 

By the time that he had started primary school, Harry already knew that no one was going to stop the Dursleys and every attempt to seek help would just mean more of their experiments with what his body could tolerate. Each time he asked for help from one of the neighbors, the Dursleys were quick to point out his lack of bruises and scars, painting Harry as a lying reprobate intent on sullying their good name. Each time he ran away, the men in the old-fashioned robes would find him and take him back. For every one of these incidents, Aunt Petunia made sure that Harry paid for the embarrassment, usually in some horribly painful way. In the end, it was better to just put up with whatever they wanted to do, than to do anything which would upset them. It didn’t matter if he slept in a cupboard under the stairs or had to do all the chores to Aunt Petunia’s expectations of perfection. It didn’t matter if sometimes food and even water was withheld. He knew that the Dursleys hated him and wished him dead. Harry knew that whatever power the necklace held would prevent his death, but just as it didn’t stop him from feeling pain, it couldn’t protect him the pain of knowing that he was not worth the same protective consideration as other _normal_ children.

 

After coming to the realization that nothing he did would ever make his _beloved family_ care for him, watching their familial affection and traditions from the outside began to leave a bitter taste in his mouth. It filled him a longing to find his own family, people who would love him and hold him when he was scared and indulge his flights of fancy. He would do anything, _anything_ , to prove to them that he was worth their care. If only he could find someone willing to love a _freak_ like him, Harry would gladly take care of them the same ways the Dursleys demanded. He would do everything perfectly—even abandon the freakish tricks he had discovered and had started using to help with his chores, if they demanded it. He would do _anything_ for someone to even just _not_ treat him like the Dursleys did, anything at all—and after Aunt Petunia’s rules and punishments, Harry was certain that _nothing_ would be too much to handle. There had to be _someone_ out there, right? And someday, hopefully, they would take him away from Privet Drive and he would _never_ have to come back.

 

But no one came, and Harry remained at the Dursleys, watching as the other children were loved and doted upon and praised. He was stuck on the outside of all he ever wanted and as his eighth birthday passed unremarked, he resigned himself to it lasting forever. He thought about how death would be an escape, a final way of sticking it to the Dursleys who hated him, and the world which ignored his pain. He had secreted away a small ceramic knife stolen from Mrs. Figg’s when she wasn’t looking. He had tested it, and it cut—and wasn’t it fitting that a Potter should die by hardened and shaped clay? What stopped him every single time he thought about it was uncertainty over what would happen with his mother’s necklace if he died. As much as he wanted free of the Dursleys, he didn’t want the necklace which offered him such double-edged protection in their control.

 

As Harry started Year 4, he noticed another pattern that had begun. The same man kept showing up around places where the kids gathered. Harry had already sat through three years of warnings about the dangers of strangers who watched kids and this guy had a lot of the things his teachers said were signs. Despite this, Harry didn’t bring the man’s lurking to anyone’s attention. The man amused Harry with his stomping about and mumbling to himself. It was also clear that whatever he was looking for was not a kid to do whatever the teachers thought was so horrible—not that Harry really believed that the teachers cared about _all_ of their students anyway, but that was a completely different matter. Harry didn’t think the man was a threat. The scary lady who showed to scold him probably was, but Harry had a good feeling about the man. So one day, he calculated that he could risk talking to the weird pseudo-stalker.

 

“I like brown,” Harry announced as he settled at the base of the tree that the man had been pacing besides as he talked into the strange phone in his hand. Harry had been careful in how he approached, being sure to keep well out of sight of not only the man but his aunt and cousin as well. So he wasn’t surprised when the man jumped and spun to face him. The weird phone barely made a sound as it dropped onto the moss-covered ground. Harry noticed that the woman displayed by the tiny screen was not the same person as the scary lady before the man snatched up the device and snapped it shut.

 

“Where—I mean, what are you talking about? What’s this about brown?”

 

“I like your brown coat better than this black one,” Harry replied. The man just blinked at him in confusion. His eyebrows did a furrowing thing similar to what Uncle Vernon’s did whenever he was thinking hard. Maybe it was the glasses but Harry didn’t think that this guy was going to have as difficult a time as his uncle and cousin typically did. That did not mean that Harry wanted the man to have enough time to think about how annoying Harry was being. “Not that this coat is terrible—it’s just… you look nicer in a medium brown. Do you normally pack so many coats on your trips? You’ve worn three different ones since I first saw you last week—and yet you always carry the same bag. It’s a nice bag. I mean, it would have to be, wouldn’t it? You change coats depending on weather and mood, but it’s always the same bag.”

 

“You notice a lot, don’t you? Are you usually this nosy?” The man sounded like he was annoyed, but there was a pitch to the grumble that fed Harry’s good feeling about him. Thus instead of backing down like he would have if Uncle Vernon had used the same tone, Harry just decided to keep talking. If nothing else, it was nice to be able to talk to someone else for once.

 

“Do you normally watch children so obsessively? The teachers have a lot to say about old men who stare at children for hours, you know. If you needed someone to watch them, it may have been better for the scary lady to be the watcher. It would probably attract less attention.”

 

“Scary lady…? Oh, you mean—no, Mrs. Fredric doesn’t—why aren’t you playing with the other children, anyway? Don’t you have some sandcastle to destroy like that boy?” The man waved his hand in the direction of the park’s sandbox. Harry didn’t have to look to know that the boy currently doing the destroying was Dudley. He could tell from the way the builder was loudly protesting rather than attempting to defend the structure that it had to be. All the kids who frequented the park knew not to try fighting Dudley because he would run crying to his mother about how mean the other children were being and then later would corner whoever dared to stand up to him with his friends. Four on one was _never_ fair.

 

“Dudley’s _mean_ ,” Harry volunteered as he wrinkled his nose. He tilted his head as he examined the man who was doing the same to him. On a whim, Harry gave him a cat blink. There was no way that he could contain his grin when the man returned the gesture. Though he was confused, the man gave Harry a crooked grin. “I like you, even in the black coat that makes you look like a Soviet spy. I’m Harry.”

 

“I’m Artie,” he said as he nervously smoothed his coat. Harry nodded and jumped up to his feet. The sudden movement startled Artie into taking a step backwards as if Harry was some kind of dangerous beast. It shouldn’t have, but the idea that he had scared the not-creepy man hurt Harry’s heart. Something must have shown on his face because Artie immediately held out his hand and retook the step. “No, don’t—I’m just used to sudden movements being bad things. You don’t have to get upset.”

 

“I’m not going to cry.” Harry crossed his arms, determined to be stubborn. Ever since the poisoned cupcake from Aunt Petunia, even normal crying hurt a lot. Besides, crying was for babies and Dudley, not _freaks_. “I’m not stupid, you know. It’s obvious that you see a lot of danger. I shouldn’t have gotten up so fast. Can I have one of your apples?”

 

“Obvious—wait, I don’t have any apples.” Artie patted his pockets as if he was double-checking that he didn’t have any apples, like one would have just shown up in his coat pockets without him noticing. Harry moved closer to him, carefully making sure to move slowly so that Artie would see him. Then he crouched beside Artie’s bag. He had it opened before Artie could reach down to stop him, revealing the shiny red apples it contained. Harry looked up at Artie’s surprised face.

 

“So the bag _is_ magical,” Harry declared as he plucked out one of the fruits. As if to prove his point, Harry closed the bag before reopening it one handed. This time the bag was empty. Harry snapped it shut again. He shifted to sitting, cradling his stolen apple. The apple had the same tingle to it that some of the items at Mrs. Figg’s had and Harry wanted to keep it, if only for a little longer before giving it back. “How about you tell me what you are looking for, Mr. Artie, and then I help you find it? Does that work for you?”

 

“No, that _does not_ work for me,” Artie denied grumpily. He yanked the black doctor’s bag away as if worried that Harry was going to harm it in some way. Despite being used to people doing that, Harry felt his shoulders slump as defeat washed over him. He had just wanted to help, and he had thought that Artie was going to be _different_ —he certainly felt different that other adults. It was okay, though, because it wasn’t like it mattered anyway. In the end, Harry wasn’t like normal people, and he needed to remember that. Artie huffed, bringing Harry’s attention back to him. “You’re a child, and what I am looking for could be—probably is—dangerous. You could get hurt.”

 

“So what?”

 

“So what? So _what_?” Artie scowled at him as he towered above Harry. Now he was starting to get intimidatingly similar to Uncle Vernon working himself into a rage. Harry made himself ready to curl into a ball, in case Artie was as prone to kicking as Uncle Vernon was. Both men carried a lot of weight around their middles, so it would be logical. Above him, Artie continued to sputter the flippant phrase in irritation and outrage. “What I’m looking for could _kill you_! Do you know what that means?!”

 

“Yes, sir,” Harry answered, carefully modifying his tone to the one which worked best to mollify his relatives. Equally carefully, Harry lowered his gaze so that he had to look at the man through his eyelashes. While he knew better than to completely look away, Uncle Vernon liked it when Harry looked cowed when he got this annoyed. Maybe if he apologized, Artie would let him slip away before the agitation drew Aunt Petunia’s attention? “I’m sorry, sir. I’ll—“

 

“BOY!”

 

‘ _Too late.’_ Harry let his eyes fall completely shut as he let the knowledge of what was most likely to come wash over him. His hands tightened around the tingly apple. He couldn’t keep it, he realized. Even if he stashed in it in his shirt or pocket, it would either be damaged by his punishment or discovered during it and confiscated. It tingled like his necklace did, and as he didn’t know what it did, he couldn’t risk the Dursleys getting it. He may not want to, but he had to give it back to Artie. Every second he delayed doing so put it in danger because Aunt Petunia was on her way over to them.

 

“Um, take your apple back,” Harry said before tossing the fruit to the cranky man, “and don’t follow.” Then Harry ran to intercept Aunt Petunia before she could reach Artie. Even angry at Harry, Artie didn’t seem to actively dislike him yet. Harry would like to keep it that way for as long as possible before the inevitable attitude that pervaded Little Whinging managed to infect the grumbly man and that meant stopping Aunt Petunia from interacting with him. Besides, it wasn’t like Artie was going to be sticking around much longer anyway, so there wasn’t any point in getting attached.

 

-= LP =-

 

“I am telling you that the kid needs some kind of intervention,” Artie argued for what felt like the thousandth time. Mrs. Fredric just stared at him as stoically as ever. He scrubbed a hand over his face. A child shrieked somewhere in the playground and Artie winced at the shrillness. Kids were the same everywhere, it seemed.

 

This past week had been hell, almost literally. Little Whinging and the Stepford neighborhood were eerily similar in their bland sameness, but beyond that he couldn’t find any reason to suspect a ping at all. It was so _normal_ here and if it weren’t for the insistence that every device connected with the Warehouse, Artie would have gladly left England behind two days after arriving. But every detection device connect with the Warehouse was insisting that there was an artifact here, one that kept moving around to various sections of the little burg, mostly centering on the park and the school.

 

The only bit of strangeness about the whole place had been the boy. He saw too much, noticing even the smallest details. He also was able to work the case, even though it was notorious glitchy and prone to becoming jinxed. Yet the boy had just opened it and it held exactly what the boy had indicated it would. Artie was good at finding things—objects or information or people, it didn’t make any difference to him. He didn’t know how exactly Harry was connected to the ping that had brought him to the bland capital of Surrey, but Artie was certain that he was connected.

 

It didn’t help his feeling of helpless frustration that towards the end there, the kid had seemed terrified, a bit of him but far more the lady who had called him over. Artie had seen the mental calculation going on before Harry had tossed the apple—not just any apple, but a Warehouse apple, something that even the Warehouse’s favorites rarely get more than a whiff of and Harry had opened the bag to reveal it stuffed with them. So Artie was left with only two certainties: 1) Harry needed help; and 2) the Warehouse wanted Harry.

 

“He opened the bag,” Artie tried again, taking a different track. He couldn’t convince Mrs. Fredric to help because it was the right thing to do, but the Warehouse always came first to its Caretaker. Artie had a feeling in his gut that even a quick check in to establish the possibility for a future agent would give enough reason for the intervention. If nothing else, Artie was good at finding things—he’d _find_ what was wrong in Harry’s life, why the Warehouse wanted the boy who was too smart for his apparent age. Mrs. Fredric looked even less impressed by this argument than she had the excuse of just a gut feeling. Artie heaved a sigh. “It was full of apples, every single one of them golden and pink. He took one out before closing the bag and it _stayed_ after he closed the bag and opened it again.”

 

“Where is this apple now, Mr. Nielsen?”

 

“Harry gave it to me before he left, but, uh, it faded shortly after he was gone.” That had been really frustrating. Artie had given thirty-five years to the Warehouse, more than half his life. He had lost friends and family, the chance to raise his son. Yet he had never even smelled the apples before today when Harry effortlessly summoned a bagful of them. For five minutes, Artie had held one of the legendary apples in his hands, watching as the Warehouse faded it away back to wherever it had come. Thirty-five years of service, but a kid messing around earned an apple, not him. It wasn’t _fair_.

 

“Interesting,” Mrs. Fredric commented. Artie couldn’t really tell but he thought that he may finally be making headway. “Do you have an address for the boy?”

 

“Number 4 Privet Drive,” Artie replied. He left out how he had already slipped into the perfect little house and there had been no real evidence that a second boy lived there, unless Harry was an incredibly violent toddler instead of the six-year-old he had seemed. Harry didn’t strike Artie as the destructive type. Even in the obviously worn clothes (which was odd in itself as the family he lived with wore expensive brand-name clothes that very much weren’t), Harry was incredibly tidy. During their conversation, Harry had moved and spoken like someone used to needing to be very careful. Careful children do not break their belongings in the ways the toys in the smallest bedroom of Number 4 had been.

 

When he looked up from his thoughts, Mrs. Fredric was gone. While not unexpected, he had been expecting some definite direction about whether he was allowed to do something more for the boy. It was the Donovan girl all over again. Artie didn’t know if he had it in him to keep walking away from children who clearly needed help, duty or no duty. The Hub was getting to be too silent to distract him from the knowledge that they were out there, helpless, even more vulnerable than the agents he had lost over the years.

 

He looked out over the park where children were innocently playing. He didn’t need a detector to know that the ping source had moved again. Both Dudley and Harry had left the park before Mrs. Fredric had arrived for their discussion about why this snag-and-bag was taking so long.

 

-= LP =-

 

The Dursleys had just settled around the table when there was a knock at the door. Dudley huffed in annoyance at the delay to his tucking into dinner while Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon shared a look over the steaming dishes of pie and vegetables. Aunt Petunia’s gaze darted to the corner Harry was standing in, awaiting the orders that normally came along with dinner. Harry tried not to flinch from the malice he could see in those eyes. His arm ached in remembrance of being broken as punishment for annoying the man at the park earlier. The knock sounded again, managing to seem insistent without any increase in tempo or force. Aunt Petunia stabbed one finger towards the kitchen as she stood and Harry retreated without argument.

 

Harry felt her before he heard her, just like the few times she had joined Artie in his kid-stalking. Mrs. Fredric had an intimidating presence, not in the sharp way of Aunt Petunia’s or the turbulent way of Uncle Vernon’s. It was just so _immense_ that Harry had the impression it was going to crush him. It reached out tendrils as if seeking him and it reminded Harry of the monster in a book he had read last year that devoured souls caught in its tentacles. That Mrs. Fredric also had a stoic outward appearance made Harry think she was far scarier than Aunt Petunia on her best (worst) day. Harry resisted the temptation to peek around the corner of the doorframe. He had already calculated that hiding was the safer option, and so in hiding he would stay.

 

“Harry, please come out here,” Mrs. Fredric said, as if countering all his thoughts. Aunt Petunia gave a nearly-silent hiss but it was the sudden sharpness she gained that made Harry stay where he was. Moving was not in his best interest, no matter how scary the stranger was, because she’d leave eventually and Harry would be the one to face down his aunt in a snit. Then he smelled the scent of apples, just as strong as it had been when he opened Artie’s bag. Against his better judgment, he leaned into the opening, more to catch the alluring scent than anything else. His eyes met Mrs. Fredric’s immediately. He felt one of the tendrils catch him even as he was pulled fully into the dining room by it. Her voice was as warm as a baked apple when she greeted him, despite her lack of a smile.

 

“You shouldn’t be here,” Harry told her, more bravely than he felt. Mrs. Fredric raised one eyebrow querulously. Even seated as she was at the Dursleys’ oak table, she was still physically intimidating with her broad shoulders and tightly woven beehive of hair. Now that she was closer, Harry could tell more about the energy that surrounded her. She was still scary, but Harry could see now that she was just as safe as Artie. Maybe she’d let him help where Artie had just gotten mad? “Artie said you don’t help look for things, and even if you did, you probably won’t find it _here_ because everything here is _perfectly normal_ —well, except me, but I don’t count. Artie didn’t say what he was looking for or what you did instead, but it’s obvious that you’re more in charge than he is of whatever it is you do. Or maybe you’re not, but end up being the boss anyway—it would be hard for someone like Artie to be bossy to someone like you, wouldn’t it?”

 

“Why do you say that, Harry?” Mrs. Fredric asked. Harry glanced at Uncle Vernon who was chewing on his mustache and Aunt Petunia who looked as if she was planning to punish Harry for talking so much about his freakishness. His glance made the woman look over at them as well, and though her face was just as stoically blank when she met his eyes again, Harry knew that she wasn’t happy with whatever she had seen. Harry reflexively dropped his gaze as her already intimidatingly large aura flexed to titanic proportions momentarily. She repeated her question, compelling him to answer honestly.

 

“You’re bigger than he is,” Harry whispered. Aunt Petunia gave another hiss of displeasure, making Harry rush on to explain. “It’s not—I’m not calling you fat or anything. It’s about your _presence_ , the energy around you. I don’t know what else to call it. Everyone has one and bigger people tend to be bosses to those smaller than them. It’s not bad and if he’s the boss, then okay, that’s fine, but it would be hard, wouldn’t it? Because he’s so much smaller and softer than you are?”

 

“Tell me about the apple,” Mrs. Fredric ordered, changing to topic suddenly. Harry looked up startled. He felt his eyes go wide at the realization of what he must have done wrong to earn this visit in the first place. Harry took a step forward, one hand extended towards the woman. He wished so much right then that her skin was not so dark—it hid any hint of possible anger and emotions were really hard for him to get from a stranger’s presence alone. Oh, God, if someone as small as his aunt and uncle could cause him so much pain, what would someone of Mrs. Fredric’s size do to him if she was mad?

 

“I gave it back! I didn’t—I wouldn’t have kept it! I wanted to, but I know it wasn’t mine. I’m _not_ a thief, no matter what you’ve heard. I just…wanted to hold it for a while,” Harry finished lamely. He moved his left hand to hold his right elbow. He really wanted to cross both of his arms over his chest, but that always made Aunt Petunia even more upset if he did it while she was taking him to task on something. Given how much worse it made his punishments from Aunt Petunia, he didn’t want to risk upsetting someone like Mrs. Fredric. He could feel his eyes prickling as the nerves began to affect him. This was _not good_ and Harry just knew that it was going to get _worse_ , because that’s how things _always_ worked.

 

“It’s alright, Harry. You’re not in any trouble,” she soothed. She stood from her seat, smoothing down her tweed suit. “I just wanted to clarify a few things before we left.”

 

“Oh,” Harry whispered, disappointed despite the fact that it should be a relief that she wasn’t staying longer. “You and Artie found whatever it was that he was looking for, then? Was it as dangerous as Artie feared? Is he okay?”

 

“Mr. Nielsen is perfectly fine,” Mrs. Fredric replied. Something about the tone made Harry think she was amused by the question. That feeling was not helped by her next words. “And I do believe that we found what brought us here in the first place, yes. Will you please go collect your belongings so that we can be off?”

 

“I get to go with you?”

 

“He’s not going anywhere!” Uncle Vernon shouted at the same time Harry voiced his shock.

 

“Yes, he is,” Mrs. Fredric said. Harry watched in amazement as she flexed again, passing titanic and leaving it in the metaphoric dust. He stumbled mentally over how to describe what he was sensing. It was _endless_ and for the first time, Harry got a sense of age along with someone’s presence, but it was just as _infinite_ as the size which made no more sense than the thick scent of apples and earth that filled the air. At the same time, Harry was filled with the same certainty that let him know that the pendant had been sealed around his neck by the fire of his mother’s love—his mother who still comforted him with intangible dreams filled with wisps of lily of the valley and the silky feel of dark red hair. Mrs. Fredric was taking him _home_.

 

“Not if I have anything to say about it,” Aunt Petunia snapped. Harry hadn’t even noticed that she hadn’t returned to her seat after bringing in their guest, too caught up in Mrs. Fredric’s presence. Now he was paying for that inattention as his aunt pulled him close to her side using his sore arm. “The boy was given to us and with us, he’ll stay. If you take him, he will always be brought back. That’s just how it is for as long as I say it is. He’s not leaving, with you or anyone else.”

 

All the certainty of a moment ago drained away. Of course he couldn’t leave. What had he been thinking? The Dursleys would never let him and even if he did, he’d only be brought back again, and it would be worse than before, so much worse. Aunt Petunia shook him as if to emphasize the points she was trying to make. The flash of bitter copper danced through him as the forceful shakes made him bite his tongue. The pain lingered even after the injury healed and echoed in his heart like the ping of a coin hitting the bottom of a well. This was his life, and until a moment ago, he had been resigned to living it.

 

“I do not think you understand, Mrs. Dursley,” Mrs. Fredric said as impassive as stone and just as giving on the subject. “You do not get a say in the matter. Harry will be coming with me and never stepping foot in your house again.” She smiled then, and Harry shuddered at the feel of it. It was far sharper than Aunt Petunia had even thought of ever being. When she spoke next, her words were full of meaning and their weight echoed to Harry in the secret way that people always did. “If I have anything to say about it. Now release the child.”

 

Harry barely processed the unspoken _or else_ that followed because Aunt Petunia was shoving him in Mrs. Fredric’s direction. He scurried towards his savior, despite not twenty minutes ago being convinced that she was the scariest woman on the planet. In fact, he no longer only thought so; he _knew_ it was true, but it was okay, better than even, because _awesome_ didn’t even start to describe the woman. As soon as he was in arm’s reach, Mrs. Fredric pulled him close to _her_ side. He had been expecting her to smell like apples, but instead it was the delicate sweetness of violets which filled his nose. It suited her, he decided without much thought.

 

“Do you have anything you want to take with you?” she whispered as she held him. Harry thought briefly of the ceramic knife behind the wall of his cupboard before he shook his head. He didn’t need it and certainly didn’t want the reminder of why he had collected it in the first place. Mrs. Fredric nodded before looking back at Aunt Petunia. “Goodbye, Mrs. Dursley. I hope that you are smarter than you’ve shown so far when you’re answering questions from the local authorities.”

 

Between that breath and the next, they were in a generic-looking bedroom with the sound of a shower running in the background. A wailing similar to a dying cat drifted out over the noise of falling water. After a moment, Harry recognized that it was someone singing badly and off-key. He stepped away from Mrs. Fredric to look around what had to be a hotel room. After a few minutes exploration, including checking the view from the window revealing a London skyline, Harry wandered back to where she had settled upon the bed. He breathed deeply of the violets before speaking.

 

“What happens now?”

 

“Now, Artie takes you home, to the Warehouse,” she said, matter of fact and calm, “and you enter a world of endless wonder.”

 

He gave her a grin as bright as a bonfire and as hopeful as a star. Then he threw his arms around her neck in a reckless hug before snuggling into the crook created between them. Mrs. Fredric stiffened momentarily before melting to cradle him in return. For the first time outside of his dreams, Harry felt loved. He closed his eyes as he silently vowed to make sure Mrs. Fredric _never_ regretted saving him. He would do everything as _perfect_ as Artie’s apples, no matter what. They were going to be his family, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> It may interest some of you to learn that I have what looks very similar to a D&D magical item entry on Harry’s artifact, with very specific rules on its abilities and limitations.


End file.
